Goodman, one of the last of the Rockefeller Republican types, recommends the following “individuals of the highest caliber” to serve on it:

Former governors George E. Pataki, Mario Cuomo and Hugh Carey, former state comptroller Ned Regan, and former mayors David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani.

A spokesman for Koch, who has expressed his disgust at Pedro Espada Jr.’s role in the coup, emailed to say the former mayor thinks "such a committee is a good idea” and he would be happy to serve on such a panel, subject to his medical condition.

Dinkins, in a brief chat with me outside an event in Harlem , said he was astonished by the defections that led to the stalemate.

She'd have to give up her House seat to do so. (Which is actually quite a good reason to believe that, at the end of the day, she won't run for Senate, and that this will all have been more about David Paterson's decision to pass her over for a junior colleague than anything else. But for the sake of this exercise, let's assume she does it.)

Who would replace her?

In Maloney's Congressional district, according to the State Board of Elections, there are 264,561 registered Democrats, 72,088 registered Republicans, and 93,304 voters not registered in any party. In the 2005 Council races in the heart of the district, the Democratic candidates (Dan Gardonick and Jessica Lappin) crushed their moderate Republican challengers (Patrick Murphy and Joel Zinberg, respectively). 

So the next representative from her East Side-plus-a-bit-of-Queens district will almost certainly be a Democrat.

With that in mind, here are some possible replacements for Maloney if she doesn't run for reelection in 2010. They are presented in no particular order.

As always, if I'm leaving anyone out, let me know.

Dan Garodnick

He’s a hardworking city councilman, a lawyer who grew up in in Peter Cooper Village, the densely populated part of the district that is driven almost exclusively by one issue: affordable housing. Gardonick's Council district includes a chunk of this area, mirroring, somewhat, the Congressional district, and giving him an edge over other electeds who are mostly known in the midtown part of the district.

Jessica Lappin

She represents the district right next door to Garodnick's, and worked as the chief of staff to the previous incumbent, the former council speaker, Gifford Miller.

She generally avoids headline-grabbing gestures and confrontation, building a profile instead through diligent constituent service. When she considered a run for public advocate earlier this year, her good working relationship with Michael Bloomberg was thought to be an asset, especially among voters in her district.

A source close to Lappin said she could consider a run if the Maloney seat were vacant.

Jonathan Bing

He was elected to the Assembly in 2002, just a few years before Garodnick and Lappin got into office in 2005. His district doesn’t go as far south, or east, as the Congressional district, but it does include a chunk of it in midtown.

He has a close working relationship with Maloney, and the two share a political club, the Lexington Democratic Club, which is a focal point of establishment power in that part of Manhattan. He's been in Albany long enough to have a legislative record to run on, but not long enough, arguably, to be considered part of what makes Albany dysfunctional.

Eva Moskowitz

The former city councilwoman who now lives and runs a charter school in Harlem seems to miss politics pretty intensely.

Coming into the race off the bench could enable her to argue that her more recent experience gives her an advantage over other candidates. She lost a race for Manhattan borough president in 2005, but has residual name recognition and working-mom biographical credibility in the district. (Images of her pushing her stroller through the district are hard to erase from my memory, at least).

The teachers union will not be helpful to her candidacy.

Liz Krueger

She came into the State Senate as a liberal champion, having nearly ousted longtime Republican incumbent Roy Goodman in 2001, then, after he retired, vanquishing Goodman's protégé John Ravitz.

After that victory, she fended off an expensive challenge from Andrew Eristoff, a self-funded candidate who was, I believe, the last serious challenger she had.

She isn’t considered as close to the Maloney political operation on the East Side as some of the other potential candidates, which, in a primary in this district, doesn't help.

Eric Gioia

He’s an exceptionally energetic councilman from the Queens side of the district who will have just gone through a citywide campaign for public advocate by the time this seat opens up next year. Even if he loses—and right now he's polling last—the money and effort spent in that race could greatly help his name identification.

He’s good at raising money in small, publicly matchable increments, and he's exceptionally good at getting media attention. 

While only a small part of the district is in Queens—his personal narrative of growing up the son of a florist may not help so much on the Upper East Side—a divided field of Manhattan candidates, plus a near-perfect campaign, could get him there.

Michael Gianaris

He’s an assemblyman, also from the Queens side of the district. He’s a Harvard graduate and former counsel to Sheldon Silver who did an amazing job of early fund-raising for an attorney general race back in 2006.

He skipped the race then, but made valuable contacts. He's smart and has the everyman thing.

Again, the combination of a crowded Manhattan field and a near-perfect campaign—especially if Gioia isn't around—makes his candidacy a totally credible idea.

George McDonald

He's the founder and president of The Doe Fund. Spokesman Ken Frydman, who once worked for Rudy Giuliani, sent a statement to reporters saying McDonald "will form an exploratory committee to run in the Democratic primary for Carolyn Maloney's Congressional seat should she chose to run for the senate." He ran for the seat in 1988, when it was held by Republican Bill Green. Four years later, Green was defeated by Maloney.

New numbers were just posted on the city Campaign Finance Board web site, and I'm going through them now. Weprin has a couple of interesting items.

He received four contributions of $2,500 from the campaign committee of Roy Goodman, a retired Republican state senator from Manhattan.

One of the more significant expenses for the Weprin campaign was the $46,700 his campaign spent on polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner last month.

He also gave $1,925 to the campaign of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. on April 30, nine days after Diaz was elected.

(Diaz will have to run for re-election in the fall, but if this one is any indicator, it won't be very competitive.)

More on the new campaign finance filings to come.

]]> City Councilman and comptroller candidate David Weprin raised $85,780 this filing period, and spent $183,760.

New numbers were just posted on the city Campaign Finance Board web site, and I'm going through them now. Weprin has a couple of interesting items.

He received four contributions of $2,500 from the campaign committee of Roy Goodman, a retired Republican state senator from Manhattan.

One of the more significant expenses for the Weprin campaign was the $46,700 his campaign spent on polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner last month.

He also gave $1,925 to the campaign of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. on April 30, nine days after Diaz was elected.

(Diaz will have to run for re-election in the fall, but if this one is any indicator, it won't be very competitive.)

More on the new campaign finance filings to come.

]]> http://observer.com/2009/05/weprin-gets-donations-from-goodman-gives-one-to-diaz-2/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver http://observer.com/2009/03/manhattan-republicans-draw-out-the-bloomberg-suspense-2/#comments Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:52:58 -0400 http://observer.com/2009/03/manhattan-republicans-draw-out-the-bloomberg-suspense-2/ Azi Paybarah http://www.observer.com/2009/03/manhattan-republicans-draw-out-the-bloomberg-suspense-2/ Manhattan Republican chair Jennifer Saul is not expected to make a decision in the next few days about whether to allow Michael Bloomberg to run in their primary.

"We will do our screening process before the assembled district leaders and members of the executive committee," said the organization's executive director, Jason Weingartner. "A vote will take place afterwards."

Those screening meetings historically have taken place in the first week of May, which means that the potentially tie-breaking decision of Saul and the committee—she would be the third of the five city chairs to approve Bloomberg's participation in the G.O.P. primary for mayor—may not be made for weeks.

The chairman in Brooklyn voted earlier this week to back Bloomberg.

The Staten Island Republican chair indicated he’s likely to back Bloomberg.

The chairmen in Queens and the Bronx are publicly airing their criticisms of Bloomberg, suggesting that they’ll vote against letting him into the primary.

Which means it all could come down to Saul.

One source in the borough noted that since the retirement of State Senator Roy Goodman in 2001, there’s no Republican in local office who the party would naturally defer to.

So, this screening process could be interesting.

“We are struggling for survival--that’s how serious it is,” he told me.

To save it, it’s going to take “strong leadership, people that have access to money. Money is necessary to rebuild the party to where it was, and good candidates. So a lot of recruiting has to go into the future. And it can be brought back.”

But Molinari isn’t too excited about John Catsimatidis, a late addition to the Republican Party and likely 2009 mayoral candidate.

“Because the man has said repeatedly that if he can’t do anything else, that he’s going to try to get the Republican endorsement," he said. "Sounds familiar to me. We don’t need candidates who just take us as a marriage of convenience. We still have pride.”

Molinari went on to say that too often candidates try using the Republican Party strictly for electioneering: “And once they get the nomination, that’s it. That’s the last time they talked about Republicanism. So, you’re not going to build a party by doing that. By allowing people from the outside to come and say, ‘Hey, you’re so lucky, I’m going to change my registration and run on your line.’ That doesn’t work that way. That doesn’t work that way at all.”

Rob Ryan, an advisor to Catsimatidis who I saw later in the day, told me, “John Catsimatidis has been a long-time supporter of such Republicans as George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani, Roy Goodman and Joe Bruno.”

Republican Greg Camp raised $42,760 and spent only $18.09 (“food for campaign staff”). $3,000 of Camp’s money came from the Committee for Roy Goodman, the former state Senator and patriarch of that once formidable GOP establishment.

Democrat Micah Kellner raised $78,137 and spent $47,453.32. Kellner’s first expense was a $100 donation to the campaign committee of Councilman Dan Garodnick. Other expenses went to his election lawyer, state Senator Martin Connor, his consultants, and to paying for campaign literature.

Which is an expense Camp should be reporting soon.

UPDATE: More on the financial reporting here.

“I’m a Democrat. I mean, that’s sort of the most obvious difference between us,” she said. “He’s a Republican, and I’m proud to be a Democrat, and I think that certainly distinguishes us.”

Perhaps understandably in a heavily Democratic city, Dr. Zinberg has eschewed the dreaded R-word in most of his campaign literature.

“I’m proud to be a Democrat, and my literature reflects that,” Ms. Lappin said over multiple cups of coffee in late October. But delivering partisan punches has become a tricky business on the Upper East Side, where Republican Mayoral candidates have done quite well in recent years. For example, if Ms. Lappin is a proud Democrat, does it follow that she is proud to have Fernando Ferrer at the top of her ticket? When asked whom she plans to vote for in the Mayoral race, Ms. Lappin’s do-or-die Democratic posture fell away.

“I’m not going to answer,” she said. It was now Saturday evening, and Ms. Lappin was standing outside the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, where she’d just finished debating Dr. Zinberg in a final candidates’ forum. She added: “I’m going to keep that to myself.”

Between her powerful Democratic affiliation and Mr. Ferrer’s sinking bid for Mayor, Ms. Lappin is tangled in a partisan paradox. She’s hardly alone. This year, it has become common practice among City Council hopefuls on the Upper East Side to hedge their partisan alliances. Democrats and Republicans are battling over open seats in the neighborhood’s Fourth and Fifth Council Districts.

In the Fifth District, Ms. Lappin, 30, a longtime aide to City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, and Dr. Zinberg, a 50-year-old surgeon and professor, are competing to succeed Mr. Miller. (The Speaker had to give up his seat this year under the city’s term-limits law.) In the Fourth District, Democrat Dan Garodnick, 33, a litigator who worked on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, is taking on G.O.P. candidate Patrick Murphy, 38, a past president of the New York City Log Cabin Republicans and former direct-marketing executive. Both are vying to replace Democrat Eva Moskowitz, who gave up her seat to wage an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for Manhattan Borough President.

While Democrats outgun Republicans by a margin of 5 to 1 across the city, the partisan divide is less stark along the Upper East Side. In the Fourth and Fifth Council Districts, Democrats outnumber Republicans by fewer than 3 to 1. The Democratic advantage is still sizable, yet it’s more modest than anywhere else in Manhattan.

Considering the dearth of Republicans in the current City Council—the 51-member body has only three of them—and the fact that most open Council seats are filled during Democratic primaries rather than contested general elections, the Upper East Side races have emerged as one of the more compelling spectacles this season. And one of the most contentious.

Like Ms. Lappin, Mr. Garodnick has found himself in an awkward place: He won’t disclose a favorite in the Mayoral race, either. The Observer’s Politicker Web site mentioned his conspicuous silence at the end of last month and speculated that Mr. Ferrer may have become a drag on the ticket for down-ballot Democrats. Mr. Garodnick refused to be interviewed for this article.

Yet in a campaign mailer sent out at the end of last week, Mr. Garodnick quoted an endorsement that seemed to hasten his drift from Mr. Ferrer. The endorsement came from Ms. Moskowitz, who linked Mr. Garodnick with the incumbent Mayor.

“Dan Garodnick and Mayor Bloomberg have both earned my endorsement because they are independent leaders who will serve our neighborhood well,” read Ms. Moskowitz’s tribute. Just to the right of her quotation, a fuzzy picture of Mr. Garodnick’s opponent, Mr. Murphy, was bisected with the word “Republican” printed in eye-poppingly bold type.

For his part, Mr. Murphy has been quick to attack Mr. Garodnick for hedging his bets on the Mayoral race. “How can you expect to be a leader if you can’t even answer such a fundamental question?” he demanded at the candidates’ forum on Oct. 29.

Partisan pressures exist on either side of the aisle, however, and they seem to have taken a toll on all of the Upper East Side candidates. While the Democratic contenders have treated their party affiliation as a boon and Mr. Ferrer’s candidacy as a bane, Republicans have taken a mirror-image stance. For Republican candidates like Mr. Murphy and Dr. Zinberg, getting endorsed by Mr. Bloomberg has been a tremendous boost, a badge of approval that’s useful to wear on the street and flash at passing constituents. The Republican affiliation that helped earn their endorsements, however, seems like more of a liability.

Last Friday, Mr. Murphy was handing out fliers in front of a Gristede’s supermarket during the evening rush hour, greeting constituents with a smile and an introduction: “I’m Patrick Murphy, running with Michael Bloomberg for City Council.” Mr. Murphy’s fliers featured Mr. Bloomberg prominently but made no mention of the Republican Party. When The Observer asked about this absence, he replied: “The Mayor doesn’t do it, either. I’m not really running as a partisan.”

Moments earlier, a woman in a taupe overcoat and glasses had paused to shake Mr. Murphy’s outstretched hand. “What party?” she asked. “Republican,” he replied. “No thanks!” she retorted and trotted off. Though he’d been rebuffed, Mr. Murphy managed to crack a smile. “Can’t win ’em all,” he laughed.

While Mr. Murphy and his Republican colleague, Dr. Zinberg, hope for a boost on the coattails of Mr. Bloomberg, they’ve also selectively softened their party ties, a practice that has opened them up to criticism from their opponents. For example, in early September, Mr. Murphy sent out two versions of the same mailer, both produced by the Baughman Company of San Francisco, the firm that also manages direct mail for Mr. Bloomberg. (For a sense of scale, consider that Mr. Murphy has spent $106,236 with the company so far; Mr. Bloomberg has paid it $3.5 million). One of the mailings said “Republican”; the other did not. Further details, including Mr. Murphy’s fight against the federal marriage amendment, were included on one version but not the other. Micah Lasher, a spokesman for Mr. Garodnick, criticized the difference.

“Perhaps between now and Election Day, the real Patrick Murphy will stand up, because he hasn’t yet,” he said. “Murphy tells some voters he’s a Republican and hides the party label from others like a scarlet letter.”

Karol Sheinin, a spokeswoman for the Murphy campaign, was quick to debunk the charge that Mr. Murphy had been disingenuous. “It’s pretty common for candidates to target certain messages to certain segments of the population. But Patrick doesn’t change. He’s upfront about who he is, what he thinks, who he supports,” Ms. Sheinin said. And she added a barb for good measure: “This just sounds like in the debate, where Garodnick was trying to get the focus off of himself and his refusal to say who he supports for Mayor.”

Back in the Fifth District, Dr. Zinberg also seems to have taken more than a few cues from Mr. Bloomberg. He switched his own party registration in 2003, from Democratic to Republican, and has been distributing “Democrats for Zinberg” buttons on the campaign trail. And he’s faced some of the same reactions.

“I’ve had people on the street say, ‘Oh, Republican—that’s all I needed to hear.’ People are not thinking,” lamented Andrew Kushnick, Dr. Zinberg’s campaign manager, who was folding fliers outside the Channel Club condominium complex on 86th Street early Friday morning. Mr. Kushnick later added that his candidate had also taken some hits from right-wing Republicans. “I met one pro-life woman who said, ‘So he supports killing the babies?’ He’s not going to apologize for the fact that he’s pro-choice,” Mr. Kushnick said. “Ideologically, he’s in line with most New Yorkers despite the Republican label.”

Apart from the Bloomberg nod, Dr. Zinberg also has the endorsement of The New York Times, which he’s played to the hilt.

Political insiders still favor Democrats to win both Council races on the Upper East Side, adding that Mr. Murphy has a slightly better chance at earning a seat for his party than does Dr. Zinberg, since party-enrollment numbers in Mr. Murphy’s district are slightly more favorable to Republicans. And Mr. Murphy has even raised more money than his opponent, pulling in an impressive $225,720, while Dr. Zinberg has languished behind Ms. Lappin, raising $81,888 to her $176,158.

Republican Legacy

This election year, Republicans who have been watching the Fourth and Fifth District candidates are also apt to highlight the history of G.O.P. leadership from the neighborhood, rattling off a roster that includes John Lindsay, Stanley Isaacs, Roy Goodman, Charles Millard, Jon Ravitz and Andrew Eristoff. They look at other competitive Council races, where Republicans like Philip Foglia in the Bronx and Pat Russo in Brooklyn have made inroads, and hope that Mayor Bloomberg’s coattails will usher a new chorus of G.O.P. voices into the Council. And come what may on Election Day, they also note that such competitive City Council races needed a rather unusual climate—the Bloomberg-dominated Mayoral race—to flower.

One of those Republican election-watchers is former State Senator Roy Goodman, who represented the Upper East Side through 17 terms in office and calls Mr. Murphy and Dr. Zinberg “my two stars.” He sent out a fund-raising letter on behalf of Dr. Zinberg just last Friday.

Mr. Goodman hopes that the Bloomberg candidacy might catalyze a Republican resurgence in the City Council, suggesting that it “will break up the normal tendency of people to all pull the levers in the same direction.” But without Mr. Bloomberg, could he dream this big?

“I certainly think it would be more difficult,” said Mr. Goodman, tipping his hat to the Mayor. “Bloomberg creates the environment in which their victories become more logical, and more likely to occur.”

Park for Temporary U.N. Offices

Community outrage is mounting as the United Nations Development Corporation steps up its plan to claim Robert Moses Park, on First Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets, and replace it with a 35-story building. The building is needed, according to UNDC president and chief executive Roy Goodman, to house temporary

offices while the U.N.'s signature building, the 50-year-old Secretariat, undergoes an estimated five-to-10-year-long renovation.

At Community Board 6's Nov. 13 meeting, Mr. Goodman tried to mollify the crowd by presenting a proposal that outlines, as a concession for the loss of park, a plan to construct a public esplanade along the East River between 41st and 48th streets, which would be wholly paid for by either the U.N. or the UNDC. The UNDC, a nonprofit agency set up to assist the United Nations with its property needs, is looking for support from Board 6 in the hope of strengthening its request to the State Legislature to de-map the park.

Board members and area residents, however, were not pacified by Mr. Goodman's offer. Several of the meeting's attendees demanded to see plans for the building and for the esplanade. Mr. Goodman gestured at a blank blackboard as he described the plan. "This isn't a plan!" shouted one person, "Where are the drawings?" "The devil is in the details," board member Bea Disman told Mr. Goodman, "and you have no details to show us." Mr. Goodman agreed to return to the board with a more detailed plan, adding that the esplanade would be a more than fair exchange for a park that is "decrepit and hardly used."

Mr. Goodman's description of the park was met with loud protest from the audience. "You go there Saturday morning and children fill the place!" longtime neighborhood resident William Baltz retorted. "There are no other parks at all nearby, and there are only two other playgrounds in the area," Jack Collins, executive director of the East End Hockey Association, told The Observer . Asked if he'd be willing to consider the land swap if the UNDC submitted detailed plans for the esplanade, Mr. Collins replied, "No, I don't think it would serve the same function as the park currently does. What [the UNDC] is proposing is basically a sidewalk along the East River-it's just a curb."

Alan Lawrence, another longtime neighborhood resident, echoed Mr. Collins' concerns and suggested that the UNDC consult with Con Ed to negotiate a takeover of the energy company's parking lot on First Avenue between 39th and 40th streets, allowing for the needed expansion of the U.N. without taking away valuable park space.

Bruce Silberblatt, a vice president of the Turtle Bay Association, a community organization that opposes the UNDC proposal, said, "If they can provide the community with an equivalent substitute, we wouldn't be opposed. But that substitute needs to be available before the [Robert Moses] park closes." He said the T.B.A. is concerned that the UNDC will close the park and "keep us waiting three to four years" while the esplanade is built. Mr. Silberblatt expressed strong disapproval of the UNDC's lack of concrete plans, saying, "They tried to make an end run, and they are not getting away with it."

The UNDC declined to comment on its plans for the park and the proposed esplanade, referring The Observer instead to the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the NYCEDC, told The Observer , "We are working on a plan now that we hope will work for everyone." She cautioned that the plan is "very preliminary at this point," and that no dates for construction have yet been set.

When reached by The Observer , Gary Papush, chairman of the parks, landmarks and cultural-affairs committee of Board 6, stated that the board won't take an official position on the UNDC's proposal until it's presented with a more detailed plan. While the board has no authority to give the plan a red or green light, the State Legislature takes the board's position into consideration in determining its decision. According to Mr. Papush, the UNDC is now delaying its request to the State Legislature to de-map the park until the new proposal is drawn up and the board has taken an official position on it.

-Matthew Ian Grace

Board Approves South

Street Seaport Rezoning

The South Street Seaport is shunned by many New Yorkers, who regard the hyper-commercial waterfront zone developed in the 1980's as a tourist trap. Some downtown Manhattanites think that's a shame, considering the illustrious history of the area, which was once the nation's leading port and remains one of its oldest surviving commercial districts.

In an effort to preserve the historic character of the South Street Seaport Historic District while at the same time stimulating small-scale residential and commercial development, Community Board 1 is proposing a rezoning of the 10-square-block area bounded by the Brooklyn Bridge to the north, Fulton Street to the south, South Street to the east and Pearl Street to the west.

"We think the time has come to restore the area and hold on to a little piece of our history," Paul Goldstein, Board 1's district manager, told The Observer . "We have the opportunity right on our waterfront to create something really special. Our zoning will help reinforce that."

The famous Fulton Fish Market, retail outlets and cultural attractions like the South Street Seaport Museum make the seaport one of the top five tourist destinations in New York City. But the area around the seaport proper is a comparative wasteland. Rows of abandoned warehouses line quaint but desolate cobblestone streets, while nearby rotting East River piers literally sink into the sea. Fetid puddles around the fish market taint the air.

But with the fish market closing in the next few years, and with plans afoot to rebuild the East River waterfront, community members are hoping to rejuvenate the district for tourists and New Yorkers alike. On Nov. 19, at its public meeting, Board 1 passed a resolution supporting rezoning of the area to prevent high-rises from marring the modest skyline.

Uncharacteristically, the board itself is the applicant in the requisite Uniform Land Use Review Process; it has worked with the Department of City Planning for over a year to craft an appropriate zoning plan. According to the Department of City Planning, the district's current high-density zoning, which dates back to 1961, allows for 635,650-square-foot residential or commercial buildings, with no height restrictions. The new medium-density zoning (used to map other neighborhoods such as Tribeca and the East Village) would limit residential buildings to 382,661 square feet and commercial buildings to 381,390 square feet. The floor-area ratio, which regulates a building's bulk, would be almost halved.

The board tabled its proposal in the wake of 9/11, but now that downtown cleanup has abated and the rebuilding effort is gathering momentum, the board is formally submitting its rezoning application. In order for the amendment to take effect, the board's proposal must be reviewed by the Manhattan Borough President and approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

At the meeting, support for the plan among board members was almost unanimous (with 27 members voting in favor, zero opposed and one abstention). The only visible opponent of the proposal was a representative of developer Milstein Properties. For the past 20 years the company has been trying to get approval to build a high-rise on the site of a parking lot it owns at 250 Water Street. Milstein opposes zoning restrictions that would limit its building's height. The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission, which designated the seaport a historic district in 1977, has consistently rejected Milstein's proposals, claiming that a tower would overpower neighboring buildings, which average four stories.

Meanwhile, the New York City Economic Development Corporation has analyzed the economic implications of rezoning and determined that developers would receive a

fair return on investment under the

proposed amendment. Local elected

officials, community groups and the Alliance for Downtown New York, which operates lower Manhattan's busines-improvement district, all support the new zoning as part of a comprehensive plan to restore the East River waterfront and preserve the seaport's historic character.

Community activists are confident that the rezoning proposal will be approved, despite the formidable political clout of the Milstein family.

"We are the last line of defense in keeping New York City history in this particular pocket in the shadow of Brooklyn Bridge alive and well for generations to come," Gary Fagin, a member of the Seaport Community Coalition and former chair of Board 1's seaport committee, told The Observer, "A hundred years from now-if we lose-people are going to look at this historic district and see tall towers, and they are going to say, 'What were they thinking that they allowed this happen?'"

-Megan Costello

Nov. 26: Board 12, Columbia University Alumni Auditorium, 650 West 168th Street, 7 p.m., 568-8500.

Dec. 3: Board 7, St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, 1000 10th Avenue, 2nd floor, 7 p.m., 362-4008.

Election reform could become a hot issue in the city this year, when the full effects of New York's term-limits law are felt. Incumbents holding all three citywide offices and 39 of the City Council's 51 seats are ineligible to run for re-election; a massive scramble is already underway to succeed the outgoing officeholders. Given New York's recent (though widely overlooked) history of Election Day foul-ups, many political insiders fear a fiasco of Florida-like proportions next fall, with thousands of registered voters turned away because of incompetence or mechanical malfunctions. Speaking at a hearing on Dec. 15 sponsored by the city's Voter Assistance Commission, Neal Rosenstein of the New York Public Interest Research Group said that "this year's hotly contested municipal elections may be a disaster unless improvements are made to the election process. If this year's primary or general elections for municipal office are anywhere near as close as this year's political contest in Florida, major snafu could undermine and cloud the results."

In remarks to reporters after the hearings, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who himself had to wait 45 minutes to vote in November, said he would appoint a panel to study New York City's election apparatus. Reforms, swiftly enacted, could obviate the need for any legal action by Mr. Spitzer or anyone else. But the Mayor also suggested that "the old-fashioned system" in place in New York may work "better than anything new …. [The] voting system in Palm Beach and Broward [counties] is much more modern than ours–and right now, which would you prefer?"

But New York's election apparatus, heavily reliant on machines that date back to the 1960's and at the mercy of Election Day workers (most of them senior citizens who earn $130 for a 17-hour day), hasn't been tested as severely as Florida's. That may change in the fall, however, when many close races are decided in Democratic Party primaries–perhaps, in some low-turnout Council races, by a few hundred or even a few dozen votes. New York got a glimpse of Election Day horrors to come when the Board of Elections tried to figure out whether Roy Goodman or Liz Krueger had won the race for State Senate on the East Side. In that race, a Board of Elections official mistakenly sent out hundreds of absentee ballots for the wrong district, before realizing the mistake and sending out a second set. With only a few hundred votes separating Ms. Krueger and Mr. Goodman, the long-time incumbent, that error caused all kinds of headaches for the Board of Elections. (Mr. Goodman eventually was declared the winner.)

But the problem came to light only because the Goodman-Krueger race was so close. Elsewhere in the city, according to the testimony before the Voter Assistance Commission, there were numerous problems this year. In Brooklyn alone, Mr. Rosenstein said, 12,000 voters cast emergency ballots because their names weren't on the registration rolls. That's 22 times the number of votes that decided the Presidential election.

Though he disagreed with the Supreme Court decision that in effect made George W. Bush president, Mr. Spitzer said he thought the majority's reliance on the equal-protection clause could give him an opening to force reform in New York. He already has proposed a package of reforms designed to update New York's voting system, including such measures as statewide voter-registration lists (they are currently maintained county by county), Election Day registration and–perhaps most crucially– funding for updated voting machines. "In legislation, timing is everything," Mr. Spitzer insisted when asked why he thought the reforms had a chance of passing this year, even though the New York Legislature routinely offers mule-like resistance to any attempt to reform election law and procedures. But if Mr. Spitzer discovers that timing means nothing to the Legislature, then he may resort to a lawsuit to force reform.

Particularly troublesome as the city prepares for a chaotic election season, say reformers, is New York's unreliable voting machines and its use of paper ballots when machines break down–a frequent occurrence. "The minute you vote on paper, you raise the likelihood your vote will never be counted," said former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger. Ms. Messinger knows something about poor Election Day counting. In the 1997 Democratic Mayoral primary, the Board of Elections initially reported that she had not received the 40 percent required to avoid a runoff with the second-place finisher, who happened to be the Reverend Al Sharpton. It was a major humiliation for Ms. Messinger and a huge moral victory for Mr. Sharpton. And then, a day or two later, the Board admitted that it had gotten the count wrong, and that there would be no runoff after all.

"I can certainly understand Reverend Sharpton's rage when he was told there [would be] no runoff," said Ms. Messinger. "By God, if you're the other candidate, how can you not think somebody conspired to do you in after the official vote?"

Margin for Error

Even without a conspiracy, the margin for error is huge.

New York City's voting machines are more than 30 years old, and the Board of Elections has only a handful of mechanics available to fix them on Election Day.

At P.S. 132 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, poll workers discovered that none of their machines were working this past Election Day. They thought they were supposed to hand out "affidavit ballots," a form of paper ballot given to voters whose names don't appear on the registration rolls. But they had run out of affidavit ballots, so they began sending voters home. Finally a poll worker realized that they were supposed to be offering regular paper ballots, and they did so–but then the paper ballots ran out, too. More voters were sent home. The voting machines were finally fixed–at 8 p.m., an hour before the polls closed.

This was not an isolated incident. State Senator Velmanette Montgomery of Brooklyn said her office was flooded with phone calls from voters who could not vote for her because the lever next to her name jammed. The voters were given emergency ballots–but inspectors were unsure how to handle the paper ballots. "At the end of the day, when I visited the polling sites, some of the inspectors and some of the site coordinators said, 'We will not count emergency ballots,'" Ms. Montgomery said.

The poll coordinators say they simply don't have the staff to handle paper ballots, especially when there are a lot of them. Ann Louise Brackville, a poll coordinator in downtown Brooklyn, complained bitterly at the Voter Assistance Commission hearings of the Board of Elections' lack of guidance on how to handle paper ballots. "Every poll site where machines break down, poll workers must invent their own way to count them," she said. "I was told by other workers, 'We simply bound them up and sent them to the Board of Elections.'"

Then there's the matter of the registration rolls. For reasons that appear unclear, names seem to mysteriously disappear from the rolls, or voters are mistakenly redirected to far-off polling sites. Or voters are told to go to Board of Elections headquarters to straighten out matters.

In 1996, according to a report by Public Advocate Mark Green, some 5,000 to 10,000 voters were turned away when 384 voting machines at 100 polling places did not open on time. Since the paper ballots are packaged with the voting machines, those weren't available, either. In at least 19 cases, according to the Green report, the voting machines didn't open until 5 p.m., just four hours before polls closed.

New York City has mounted several unsuccessful efforts over the years to replace its Stone Age voting machines, but because of a combination of incompetence and corruption, according to Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Research Group, "we are back at square one."

Within days, pending the final count of absentee ballots, Mr. Goodman will find out whether he has been ousted by Liz Krueger, a little-known Democrat who leads Mr. Goodman by a couple hundred votes in the still- unresolved election. And the patrician Mr. Goodman, heir to a pharmaceuticals fortune, is certainly aware that he faces a potentially bleak outcome.

"After 32 years, perhaps there are advantages to being returned to civilian life," Mr. Goodman said. "It's rather arduous to be a State Senator. You have to go to Albany, which involves rather radical temperature changes-going into deep freeze all winter long."

Albany has been a frigid place of late for the pro-choice, pro–gay rights Mr. Goodman. Many of his fellow Rockefeller Republicans have long since retired. He is now surrounded by suburban and upstate Republicans whose icon is not Nelson Rockefeller, but Alfonse D'Amato. "In many ways, Roy is sort of alone," said Eric Schneiderman, a Democratic State Senator from the Upper West Side. "Albany is not a gentleman's club anymore-things are done much more through the exercise of pure political power."

Then there is the small matter of Ms. Krueger. If her slim lead holds, it will drop the curtain on a political career that began with a casual conversation with then- Governor Rockefeller on a beach in 1968, weathered the Watergate-era backlash against the G.O.P., survived the rise of conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Mr. D'Amato, and now may come to a quiet end at a time when social liberalism is anathema to Republicans in New York and throughout the nation.

There's no question that Ms. Krueger, a political neophyte, mounted a formidable campaign. Her husband, Harvey Krueger, a vice chairman at Lehman Brothers, raised more than half a million dollars for her effort. She argued that Mr. Goodman's eagerness to please the more conservative Republican leadership has trumped his good intentions.

"His voting record shows that he is the kind of Republican the rest of the State Senate is," Ms. Krueger said. "It's not a party of Javits, Rockefeller and Lindsay-it's now a party of Joe Bruno and upstate conservative Republicans. Goodman has gone along with it, even if his rhetoric hasn't."

As of Nov. 27, as the count of paper ballots dragged on, Ms. Krueger led Mr. Goodman by several hundred votes out of more than 120,000 votes cast. Mr. Goodman credits her strong showing to the fact that Al Gore and Hillary Clinton topped the Democratic ticket, and they ran well in Manhattan. Still, he was clearly startled by her tough challenge.

Asked when it dawned on him that he might be in trouble, he said: "I'd say some time around 9:30 on election night."

Mr. Goodman-whose verbal repertoire draws on Borscht Belt schtick, stilted 19th-century political discourse and tortured Kempton-esque syntax-is an anomaly, even something of an antique, in Albany. He has made the drive to and from Albany nearly 1,000 times during his career. In an age of Palm Pilots, he still notes the day's chores on what he calls an "action card"-an index card stored in his breast pocket. A Harvard graduate turned public servant adrift in a legislative body dominated by lawyers and party hacks, Mr. Goodman exuberantly plays his role of gentleman legislator.

An Endangered Species

"He is certainly an endangered species in the workaday world of the legislature," said fellow Senator Serphin Maltese of Queens.

Mr. Goodman's patrician air and lack of the common touch have inspired no shortage of in-house mockery in Albany. One story about Mr. Goodman goes like this: During Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's 1993 re-election campaign, he was traveling back from an event with the Mayor when Mr. Giuliani's van pulled over at a White Castle. Mr. Goodman offered to treat the van's eight occupants to a meal. Apparently unfamiliar with White Castle's trademark tiny hamburgers, he returned to the van with eight of them-eliciting boos from his hungry companions, who no doubt had their hearts set on three or four apiece.

"He had never had a White Castle hamburger," laughed one politico familiar with the tale.

Mr. Goodman confirmed the episode. "These were little squares that were hardly worthy of the name 'hamburger,'" he said. "They were diminutive and not very nutritious. I was trying to be munificent, but it was not exactly what you'd call a memorable gastronomical delight."

Mr. Goodman's current plight in the State Senate reflects the transformation that the Republican Party in New York, and local politics in general, have undergone in the last generation. When Mr. Goodman arrived in Albany, towering New York Rockefeller Republicans like Jacob Javits and John Lindsay were important national figures. Mr. Goodman's party followed Rockefeller's lead in expanding the size and scope of state government. Under Rockefeller, New York built a huge state university system, legalized abortion three years before Roe v. Wade and raised the state personal income tax to historically high levels.

It is fitting that Mr. Goodman's political career was born during a conversation with Rockefeller. In 1968, when Mr. Goodman was a high-level official in the Lindsay administration and a failed Assembly candidate, he and Rockefeller were strolling on a beach in Puerto Rico watching their 2-year-old sons playing in the sand.

"We were talking about our futures, and Rockefeller was saying he thought the real fun in public service was in elective politics," Mr. Goodman said. "Just at that moment, my wife stepped out of the room and said, 'There's a long-distance call from New York.' It was my finance chairman telling me that Seymour [State Senator Whitney North Seymour Jr.] was running for Congress. Would I like to run for State Senate? I went back and told Rockefeller, 'I have just been offered a chance to run for office. Would you recommend that I do?' And he said, 'Absolutely-I would seize the opportunity.'"

The New Breed

He did. But by the late 1970's, the Rockefeller wing of the party had withered. Rockefeller was gone, New York City was in the throes of a fiscal crisis brought on, in part, by Rockefeller's spending and borrowing, and the upheavals of the 1960's created a backlash among cultural conservatives. Rockefeller's place as party-builder was taken by a distinctly un-Rockfeller Republican, Mr. D'Amato, who infused local public life with a bewildering blend of attack politics and pothole-fixing. Mr. D'Amato also bolstered his party by tying its fortunes to the Conservative Party, which was founded by right-wing Republicans who loathed Rockefeller and his ideological allies.

And so Mr. Goodman found himself adrift in a world controlled by the likes of Mr. D'Amato and, more recently, Mr. Bruno, a longtime ally of the former U.S. Senator. When Mr. Bruno tried to abolish rent regulations in 1997, Mr. Goodman became one of the few Republicans in the State Senate to rise to their defense, putting him at odds with his party.

Mr. Goodman rejects the idea that Rockefeller Republicans are a vanishing breed. "We are rather the proliferating breed," Mr. Goodman said. "We've convinced a number of others to come to us-including Giuliani and [Governor George] Pataki."

But now Mr. Goodman is in danger of losing the job he has held for more than three decades. Ms. Krueger's candidacy attracted the attention of powerful city Democrats who view the seat as critical to the party's efforts to recapture the State Senate. (Of course, they have been trying to recapture the State Senate since, well, the days of Nelson Rockefeller.) What's more, some of Mr. Goodman's allies are quietly distancing themselves from him in behind-the-scenes conversations, saying that he has lost his clout with the Senate's Republican leadership.

"Look, on the one hand, there's no question that it's been valuable to have Goodman there," said a prominent lobbyist for the city's cultural institutions, which rely on another relic of Rockfeller Republicanism-state funding for the arts. "But I don't think he's come through nearly as dramatically as some might have you believe. There are certain Republican members of the State Senate from outside of New York City who have often done more to produce real dollars for the city's cultural institutions. Everybody clung to him symbolically."

Just days after Election Day, the answering machine at Ms. Krueger's campaign headquarters offered callers a message: Ms. Krueger had already declared victory. And her narrow lead is growing daily as the count goes on. But Mr. Goodman remains optimistic.

"We're doing fine," he said. "All our people say we're in like Flynn. But in this case, we'll have to defer Mr. Flynn until we await the sound of chickens clucking in the barnyard."

Sensing puzzlement on the part of his questioner, Mr. Goodman translated: "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched."